Dragon Stone

This is yet another incarnation of the tried and tested "Match Three-games": you drop or shoot coloured balls on other coloured balls to create clusters of three or more, which will make the balls disappear. When there are no more balls on the level you move on to the next. Some of the more well known games of this type are probably Columns and Zuma.

There is a twist to this game, though, which makes it very enjoyable and catching.

The game starts with a little story about a princess who needs a groom. Her father, the king, naturally won't let any old knight marry her so he sends you, Knight Baldrick the suitor, off on a quest to find and recover the mythical Dragon Stone; an artefact of great power.

Naturally dropping - or rather shooting - coloured balls is the major feature of the game. Matching three balls - rows or clusters- will make them disappear. You control a crossbow looking thing at the top of the screen, shooting the balls down onto the playing field. Left clicking the mouse will shoot balls while right clicking will shoot an arrow at enemies and obstacles, or in some cases at targets embedded in the ball-structures. Holding the right mouse button depressed creates a big blast, the strength and nature of which depends on how much your bow has been upgraded. Taking hits from enemies will lose you life, indicated by little hearts in the sidebar.

As the game progresses you get the opportunity to buy stronger armour and more life, and to upgrade your crossbow - which is very considerate since the enemies also get stronger and more frequent. In between levels you follow a rather cute, animated Knight Baldrick making his way through the lands, through marshes, frozens wastes, volcanic islands, and graveyards to name but a few. Some of the enemies on the different courses are swamp monsters, yetis, fire breathing demons, and ghouls respectively.

At more than one point in the game you get the opportunity to choose to help a character with a task. Without spoiling too much of the fun I can say that it's a good idea to remember the laws of chivalry. After you have finished the regular game, and provided you actually complete the task you were sent out to complete, you can play the levels individually in Expert Mode - and that is no walk in the park.

The game is really well made, and moves forward at an appropriate pace, letting you get the hang of the different weapons and enemies before upping the ante. Towards the end it gets pretty difficult, and I used up all my extra lives (fortunately you get to earn extra lives during the game) more than once before finishing.